


Not Stalking Him

by cheshirejin



Series: Beef Haus AU [7]
Category: Hetalia - Fandom
Genre: Gen, M/M, Multi, Trope Bingo Round 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 14:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3813649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshirejin/pseuds/cheshirejin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><span>A beef haus AU fic</span><br/><span></span><br/><span>PettiFours – Eiskaffe</span><br/> </p>
<p>  <strong>Title: Not Stalking Him</strong><br/><strong>Author: cheshirejin</strong><br/><strong>Fandom: Hetalia</strong><br/><strong>Wordcount: 2309</strong><br/><strong>Rating: T</strong><br/><strong>Pairing(s): Sweden/Finland</strong><br/><strong>Genre: romance</strong><br/><strong>Warning(s): none</strong><br/><strong>trope: au: coffee shop</strong></p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Stalking Him

 

It was closing time and the place was empty. Berwald waited until the last of the customers had left, before locking the front door and heading off in search of his boss. He ran a hand through his short, choppy, blond hair and adjusted his glasses in frustration when the back office was empty. Turning the corner into the video poker room, he spotted the man he had been searching for. 

Lucas was sitting in front of a machine, playing some sort of flush poker game. His fingers nimbly hit the deal/draw button and the machine rang out, registering a minor win. 

“’I’m goin’ for coffee,” Berwald said, waiting with his eyes fixed on the cross shaped barrette adorning Lucas’s hair until he nodded in agreement, before leaving.  Neither was a man of many words, but they communicated well enough.

Berwald stood for a second, getting used to the chilly night air. At this hour, people out and about were few and far between. Anyone he saw was most likely drunk or a thief. Luckily for him, he was a large and intimidating presence to people who didn’t know him, which was most everyone. It was a boon to his job as the bouncer of the Beef Haus. He walked past the nearest coffee shop, and the second nearest. Seven blocks later, he had reached his destination, a little bakery/bistro known as PettiFours.  The place was well known to him, one of his co-workers, their weekend bartender, also worked there during the week. 

Of course, choosing to walk several extra blocks in the wee hours of the morning had nothing to do with the cute little barista, who worked the graveyard shift; nothing at all, nope. He was not there to get an eyeful of the cute bubbly blond with the most amazing violet blue eyes. He was just showing loyalty to his coworker, Gilbert, by patronizing his other workplace if anyone asked, which no one did, because the few people who knew him also knew he was kind of, sort of, definitely ‘not stalking’ Tino. 

He entered the bistro, the strong smell of coffee and baked goods invading his senses in a pleasant way. He looked over to the coffee counter, but unlike what he had become accustomed to given the late hour, he wasn’t the only customer in the room. There was a guy wearing the same dark brown wool coat and the  black and white houndstooth patterned scarf he had grabbed when hastily leaving Beef Haus at Berwald’s insistence for causing trouble earlier. The guy had been giving Feliciano a hard time about his wine list, and was about to get pummeled into an unrecognizable pulp by Ludwig, when Berwald had stepped in and none too gently escorted him out of the building. He was leaning against the counter, and alarms went off in Berwald’s head.  He thought he had been doing the guy a favor by letting him leave on his own, but now he could see that all he had done was make his problem into someone else’s. 

“Whipped cream? Whipped cream! No, I would not like whipped cream in my coffee,” he slurred, reaching out to grab Tino’s arm, and prevent him from spraying the offending substance from the can in his hand onto his drink.  “That crap’s just to hide the shitty taste of the cheap-assed bean juice you brew here.  Americano, gods what is that anyway? Coffee as preferred by the people in the home of the fucking Big Mac?  You might as well offer to jizz in a cup of toilet water and serve it up, ya dumb shit.”

Berwald didn’t need to hear more. He hurriedly stepped up behind the guy and placed a hand on his shoulder, firmly squeezing the area where his deltoid muscle attached to the shoulder. This caused they guy to loosen his grip enough that Tino could pull free. 

“He causin’ you trouble?” Berwald asked.

Tino just stared, wide eyed and he looked like a scared rabbit. A cute little scared rabbit.

“Owowow leggo you, that hurts,” the drunk guy said, cringing under the pressure of Berwald’s hand on his shoulder. “Heeeyy I know you. You kicked me outta the bar before. Awe don’t tell me you work as a bouncer here too, you giant faggot.”

Berwald rolled his eyes and flipped his phone open. He hit speed dial two and soon the familiar voice of the dispatcher at the cab company answered.  He should have done this earlier and avoided the trouble.

It was an uncomfortable wait for everyone involved, but more so for the poor slob, who had kept talking, until he thoroughly pissed Berwald off.  The guy would probably feel it for a few days, after being escorted out front, then forced to the ground and held with a shoulder lock as he dug out the guy’s wallet and found his home address to give it to the cab driver when he arrived.

As soon as the cab pulled away, Berwald remembered he was supposed to be getting coffee for everyone back at work. He turned to the counter as Tino sat the last of the cups into a carrying tray for him.  He had apparently remembered the usual order and put it together, while Berwald was dealing with things out front.

“Here you go; one eiskaffee, one shot in the dark, one triple death with whipped cream, one regular espresso, and a double shot mocha with whipped cream and three chocolate coated espresso beans. Don’t worry about paying for it, I owe you at least that much for all of your help and, uhm, thanks. N-not just for the order; I mean, you could have just turned around and left, but you didn’t. I really appreciate it, because he was starting to act like he might try and hurt me and I am not much of a fighter. I phoned for help, but the owner wasn’t home and the co-owner lives across town and, well, I didn’t have to wait for someone to show up because you were here and well thank you again,” Tino said all at once, followed by a nervous giggle when he realized he had probably, most definitely, been rambling. 

Berwald nodded, blushing slightly. Tino was just too cute for words in his eyes, and he would sit and listen to that cute sexy voice of his even if he were reading names from the phone book.  Then it hit him, this was a perfect opportunity. He grabbed a napkin and pen from the counter and wrote his name and phone number on it. 

“If you have any more trouble, call me,” he said, handing the napkin to Tino.

Just then, the front door burst open and a dark haired man with wild green eyes came charging in through the front door, wielding a big, red axe. 

Tino vaulted the counter and stood in front of Berwald, waving his arms in a warding off gesture. “It’s not him, Tony, it’s okay; he’s a friend. He helped me get rid of the bad guy, before you got here,” he shouted insistently. 

Tony, apparently that was his name, stopped and lowered the weapon a bit, but didn’t look completely convinced. 

“Are you sure?” he asked, sizing up Berwald in an obvious way and grasping the axe a bit tighter.

“Yes, I’m sure, this is…” He looked down at the napkin that was still in his hand. His brow crinkled as he looked over to the tall blond and mouthed his name questioningly. Getting a nod from him, he continued, “Berwald, he’s a regular here. He’s here every night, but Monday and Tuesday. He comes in and places a large order of one eiskaffee, one shot in the dark, one triple death with whipped cream, one regular espresso, and a double shot mocha with whipped cream and three chocolate coated espresso beans and never causes any trouble. Oh, and where on earth did you get that axe?” 

Antonio, or Tony as his friends called him, was not sure whether to be more impressed by the way Tino had said that all in one breath or the amount of information he had about this one specific customer. He still wasn’t sure about what was going on. “The axe was a gift from a friend, a fire fighter,” he told Tino, before turning to the other man. “Berwald, is this true?” he asked.

Berwald nodded, “I come here and get coffee for everyone to drink while we close up at work,” he glanced to his side to watch Tino as he added this last bit, “Monday and Tuesday are my days off.”

Tino’s face grew warm. When the big blonde man started showing up regularly at first, Tino had been more than a little intimidated by him, but he had always been polite and quiet. After a while, he had started to wonder about his big, silent, mystery man, so he had started noting the things he could while he was there. Well, there wasn’t much he could learn other than when he came and went, and what he ordered. And now he knew his name. And now Berwald knew that he had been gathering information on him right from his own stupid mouth. It was embarrassing….    
Then it clicked. He could ask anything he wanted to know right now and he had the mad axe man to back him up on getting an answer.

“So where is it that you do work anyway?” Tony asked, causing Tino to frown because he was about to ask the same thing and Tony had beat him to it.

“Beef Haus,” Berwald answered, waiting for the obvious next question.

Beef Haus, Tino had heard of the place. Their daytime barista, and one of Tony’s best friends in the whole world, Gilbert, worked there part time, but wasn’t that a male strip club? He tried to picture the quiet, somewhat awkward man before him working as an exotic dancer and that thought got the old red X and wrong answer buzzer immediately.

“Hey, you must know my good friend, Gilbert. He works there too, don’t tell me you’re a dancer there,” Tony finished with a wide smile on his face, finally putting the axe down, head first on the floor, and leaning on the handle. 

Berwald shook his head, “Don’t dance. Gilbert told me to come here the first time, so I came. Coffee’s good so I came back.”

“Wonderful, any friend of Gilbert’s is a friend of ours,” Tony said, smiling warmly as if greeting a long lost friend. “But hey, you never said what you do over at the Beef Haus.”

“Security,” Berwald said simply.

“That explains how you dealt with that guy so easily, it was really impressive,” Tino said enthusiastically. “You should have seen it, Tony, he grabbed the guy and took him outside, then did some sort of, I don’t know, martial arts or something, and pinned him face down on the sidewalk until the cab arrived.”

“Why didn’t you call the police? Shouldn’t we have had the guy arrested?” Tony asked, thinking it might have been better if the police had locked the guy up.

“Dealt with it, before the police needed to be called,” Berwald answered, looking a bit sheepish. Lucas insisted that things be dealt with, before anyone could get hurt or any property damaged. Of course, the patrons at the bar would be grateful to be sent home in a cab rather than to the city drunk tank by the cops. It helped keep the bar’s reputation as a friendly place. 

Tino nodded. “I was scared, but Berwald got to him, before he did anything to me or the shop so yeah, I don’t think we needed the police.”

“Well then, I guess I owe you my thanks, _amigo_ , and tonight’s coffee is on the house of course,” Tony said, ”Now, since I am here so early anyway let’s see if I remember how to make a decent churro. Frank, er François hasn’t let me into the bakery part of the kitchen since he got back from his big vacation trip to Paris last month.” He picked the axe up and made a show of stowing it behind the counter, before heading back to the kitchen area, muttering a list of ingredients he would need as he went.

The coffee… Berwald looked at the clock and was shocked to see how late it had gotten. “I should get back to work,” he said, grabbing the tray of now slightly cold coffees. He couldn’t think of anything else that wouldn’t be horribly awkward to say, so he left with a short nod toward Tino and headed back to work.

Tino watched him go, smiling to himself. Who would have thought such a big, scary looking guy would turn out to be his savior? It reminded him of the T-Rex swooping in to save the day in the end of that old Jurassic Park movie. Yeah, he was a little bit mental, he admitted to himself, but he had always really liked that scene. He shook his head to clear it as he walked back behind the counter, and started breaking down and cleaning one of the espresso machines, so it would be fresh for day shift. 

Berwald walked quickly down the dark sidewalk. His cheeks tinged pink as he anticipated the amount of teasing he would be subjected to for being so late. A small smile curved the corners of his usually stoic face. If Tino actually called him, then any amount of teasing his coworkers could heap upon him would be worth it. Later he would be thrilled to notice the phone number Tino had scribbled on his receipt.  
                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
